Officers Shoot Gun-Wielding Woman in Long Beach, Police Say

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Long Beach police on Saturday shot and wounded a woman who was holding a semi-automatic weapon, officials said.

Police closed off an area near 3rd Street and Long Beach Boulevard, where an officer-involved shooting occurred on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2013. (Credit: OnScene.tv)

Officers responded to the area of 3rd Street and Long Beach Boulevard about 9:45 a.m. after receiving multiple reports of a person with a gun, said Marlene Orona, spokeswoman for the Long Beach Police Department.

When the officers arrived they tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the woman to put the weapon down, Orona said. Mental evaluation teams were called to the scene, as were Spanish- and English-speaking response teams, who spoke to the woman for more than an hour.

About 11:35 a.m. the woman appeared to brandish the semi-automatic weapon, and an officer-involved shooting occurred, police said. She was struck twice.

The unidentified woman was transported to a hospital, where she was listed in critical but stable condition, according to Orona. No officers were injured in the incident.

Witnesses said the woman lives at MHA Village, a live-in recovery home for people with mental illness. MHA Village is located in the 450 block of Elm Avenue, about three blocks from where the shooting occurred.

There have been 19 officer-involved shootings in Long Beach in 2013, more than twice the number that occurred in the city in 2012. Five of this year’s shootings involving Long Beach police have been fatal.